updated 12:17 pm EDT, Thu July 19, 2012

Wireless service gains 888,000 new subscribers in quarter

Verizon has released its second-quarter financial results, which benefited from 888,000 new wireless subscribers. The company is said to reach 94.2 million customers, marking a five percent jump compared to the same period last year. Total retail wireless service revenue surpassed $15.8 billion for the quarter, up 18.5 percent, while data revenues surged by $1.1 billion year-over-year to reach $6.9 billion.

Smartphones now represent half of Verizon's retail subscriber customer base, up from 47 percent in the previous period. The Droid Incredible 4G LTE and Samsung Galaxy S III introductions were seen as highlights, along with the Jetpack 4G LTE mobile hotspot and MiFi routers, while the spectrum exchange deal with T-Mobile, aimed at bolstering Verizon's LTE rollout, is expected to affect revenues for the next quarter.

As for its wireline business, which includes landline voice, cable television and broadband Internet, total second-quarter revenues slid by three percent to $9.9 billion. The falloff occurred despite a 2.5 percent gain in consumer revenues--the highest increase in years--as average revenue per user for the segment reached a record $100.26. An extra 134,000 FiOS Internet connections and 120,000 FiOS Video connections were added in the quarter, pushing total connections to 5.1 million and 4.5 million, respectively. Approxomately 70 percent of FiOS consumer customers purchased a "triple play" bundle of phone, Internet and TV services.